Sanofi launches world's second insulin plant in Russia

In early June, the city of Oryol — located 229 miles outside of Moscow — held a ceremony marking the start of production of insulin at the Sanofi-Aventis Vostok plant. An RBTH correspondent attended the conference and visited the plant.

The plant in Oryol — the second global production facility
under the diabetes research unit of the French company Sanofi — is the first in
Russia to operate a complete production cycle of human and analogue insulin.

On the morning of June 4, the city of Oryol in the Oryol Region
held a ceremony for the opening of the Sanofi-Aventis Vostok plant. Thanks
to its multi-shaded blue facing and tinted glass, the plant hosting the opening
ceremony looked hi-tech and modern under the bright sun. Inside the Sanofi
plant, innovative production technologies are used to make medicines that are
fully compliant with the quality standards of Sanofi's plant in Frankfurt,
Germany.

The production of insulin in the Oryol Region. Source: Yekaterina Chipurenko

Sanofi has produced insulin in Russia since 2010, when the
company acquired a controlling stake in an insulin production unit in Oryol
Region. Over the following two years, the plant produced several validation
series of insulin and fine-tuned its manufacturing processes.

In February 2013, the company was registered to run a full
production cycle. Now, highly convenient and compact injection pens will
undergo all stages of production — from assembly to final testing and shipment
to the place of sale — at the new plant in Oryol.

“The
pharmaceutical cluster of Sanofi-Aventis Vostok is a strategic project for
Oryol Region. Of
course, we are proud that the only human insulin production facility in Russia
is located here, making the very latest pens," said
the governor of Oryol Region, Alexander Kozlov, at the opening ceremony.

Related:

France's Sanofi, headquartered in Paris, is the first of
“Big Pharma” (the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world) to produce
drugs for the treatment of diabetes on the Russian market.

The company started selling medicinal drugs in 1970, but
could only set up its own production in Russia after the acquisition of the
plant in 2010. Today, Sanofi-Aventis Vostok is capable of producing up to
30 million insulin injection pens per year.

The complete production cycle takes 25 days. In this period
of just over three weeks, the substance imported from Frankfurt (in a
refrigerator cooled to 13 degrees below zero Fahrenheit) is turned into
ready-to-use syringe pens with a convenient dispenser.

"When we manufacture here, we manufacture and test
according to the same global quality standards that we apply in the group, so
that the product we supply to Russian patients from sites in Oryol has exactly
the same quality as the product that we manufacture in Frankfurt," said
Martin Siewert, Sanofi’s vice president of production.

According to official statistics, diabetes mellitus affects
more than 3.5 million people in Russia. The World Health Organization, taking
into account undiagnosed cases, cites a much larger figure at 12.7 million. Just
a few years ago, mass production of insulin in Russia was limited to porcine or
analogue types.

The arrival of Sanofi in Oryol Region has had an impact on
the development of other unrelated production industries. The company is
implementing a program for the treatment of patients with breast cancer, as
well as arranging educational programs for adults and children suffering from
diabetes mellitus.